17calculus blog

As promised we have been adding lots and lots of practice problems. We now have over 500 practice problems with about half of those on infinite series. We have been focusing very hard on infinite series since we know most students struggle with them. However, they are not hard as long you work plenty of practice problems, more than you usually do for other calculus topics. The infinite series practice problems are nearly complete . . . for now. We will always add more practice problems but currently, we need to focus on other areas.

One of those other areas is limits. We have over 150 limits practice problems now. We have expanded the discussion on trig limits, the epsilon-delta definition of the limit and the squeeze theorem. The last limits page to get updated with content and practice problems will be one-sided limits, with maybe a face-lift here and there on other pages.

After that . . . well, we haven’t really decided. We are leaning toward multivariable calculus topics, applications of derivatives or integrals or maybe parametrics.

In the meantime, check out these PatrickJMT free practice problems. You will find plenty of written out practice problems that should hold you for now. PatrickJMT is one of 3 featured instructors on our site that we think explains calculus well, uses good notation and is a good instructor. We highly recommend his videos.

What would you like to see? What is coming up in your class in the next few weeks? Let us know and we may be able to get you some practice problems.

Practice problems are the core of learning calculus. You can watch videos, read books, listen to lectures, watch others work problems and you still won’t get calculus until you sit down and work practice problems on your own and wrestle through every derivative, every integral, every series test . . . well, just everything!

Here at 17calculus, we are working hard to bring you more practice problems. Over the next few weeks, you will notice lots more practice problems showing up. We have over 300 practice problems now but we hope to have LOTS more soon. Exactly what do we mean by ‘lots’?

Well, not only have we wanted to bring you tons of practice problems for a long, but we also noticed another problem. We have over 1400 videos, the best videos available on youtube. But how do you know which videos to watch? Some of them explain theory, but most just show examples. And most of the time you have to actually watch the video to know if it applies to you. That sounds like a good way to waste time.

So, to solve both problems, we are going through each video, and telling you which ones discuss theory and which ones have examples. Then we post the video so that you can watch only what applies to you. You will be able to watch theory without having to look at examples that you may not understand yet. And you will be able to work practice problems without having to wade through all the theory, searching for that perfect practice problem.

The examples from many of the videos are shown as practice problems at the bottom of each page. You can tell they are videos because the button to show the solution will say ‘Video Solution’. The practice problems with buttons labeled ‘Detail Solution’ are practice problems with worked out solutions and may or may not contain a video as well.

So check out the first few pages we’ve been working on listed below. Give us a few months to get this done. Like we said, we have over 1400 videos at the moment and more are added periodically. But we will be working diligently to bring you the best videos and the best practice problems for calculus available online. Our goal is to have at least 25 practice problems for each technique with more for difficult topics. So, to answer our question above, lots means hundreds!

Keep working those practice problems and let us know what you think!

Infinite Series
Limit Comparison Test
Direct Comparison Test
nth-Term Test
Limits
Finite Limits
Infinite Limits
Integrals
Trigonometric Integration
Trigonometric Substitution

Today we announce three major updates to the 17calculus site.

First, we added a lot of content to the L’Hôpital’s Rule page. Up until now, the page was mostly blank with a section of videos and practice problems. In the last week, we’ve added a lot of discussion on the topic and added an important section explaining the difference between L’Hôpital’s Rule and the Quotient Rule. This is a common confusion that will hopefully be cleared up once you read that section. We have also added 5 more practice problems for a total of 15 L’Hôpital’s Rule practice problems.

Second, we changed the way the menu system works. We moved the main menu on each page to the left and have it tucked away from view. When you need it, you only need to move your mouse over the main area of calculus you are studying and the menu will scroll out. Then hover your mouse over the section menu to expand the section you are looking for. You need to click only when you know which topic you want to read next. Additionally, the menus will not be scrolling off the page making them easier to see. They are stuck to the left side of the window and so are available for you wherever you are on the page. An additional bonus is that you can pin the menu so that it will stay expanded when you move the cursor off the menu list. It will stay pinned until you click the ‘X’ to unpin it.

Third, this new menu format opens up more real estate for content including allowing the videos that are embedded in the Resources section to be larger. I don’t know about you but I don’t really like to watch videos in full-screen view and the videos on youtube are too small to clearly see the equations sometimes. The larger videos on 17calculus are a better way to watch calculus videos. (Note: Give us a few days to update all the videos on all the pages. We have over 450 videos on over 100 pages.)

Let us know what you think and how these updates have helped you learn calculus.

We are currently working on building complete topic courses. Over the next few weeks, we plan to have the following courses complete and active:
- Limits
- Derivatives
- Integrals
- Differential Equations

In the future we plan to have additional courses on the application of derivatives, advanced limits and integrals as well as vectors and multiple integrals.

We are excited to announce that, at this time we have completed one course, the Limits Course. This is the beginning course on limits before studying derivatives. The Derivatives Course is started but not complete. As soon as it is complete, we will post a message here.

Let us know what you think and how the 17Calculus site can be improved to help you learn calculus.

We have built two new pages on limits. Both pages still need some good discussion content but we wanted to make the videos for these topics available to you.

The first page is on one-sided limits. We found several good videos and have posted them on the new one-sided limits page.

The second page is on the squeeze theorem. This is sometimes called the sandwich theorem (Thomas Calculus). We found some new videos and decided to move the video that was already on the main limits page to a new squeeze theorem page.